The Unexpected
by Barcardivodka
Summary: The last people I got to see on this earth are the very ones who ended my time here, the very ones I would have picked to watch my back.


With many thanks to my beta's.

Warnings: Minor Character Death

First Person POV

* * *

After snapping on a pair of gloves, Laura lets them into the flat with a cheery welcome, before heading to the kitchen and pouring the bottle of red wine she'd brought with her down the sink, turning the cold tap on to help rinse it down the drain.

Lewis and Hathaway come towards me, their hands already covered in latex gloves. I can't believe that out of all of them, it would be these three; they weren't even on my possible but improbable suspect list. And besides, I'd only been sent in to Oxfordshire CID to cross some T's and dot the I's, to do a comparison investigation, while others of the team sorted out the bedlam in Greater Manchester CID. No, this can't have anything to do with _that, _it's impossible.

"How long?" Lewis asks Laura, as she wraps the empty wine bottle in a Tesco bag, adds the lid and plastic wrap that were laying on the breakfast bar and places it all in her oversize handbag. Now that I think about, I can't recall ever seeing her with a handbag of any size before.

"About twenty minutes," she replies, "give or take four or five."

Twenty minutes? Twenty minutes to what? Whatever she spiked the wine with wears off, or before it killed me? God, that's a terrifying thought.

Hathaway wanders down the hallway towards my bedroom and the bathroom, Lewis still stands in front of me, he looks almost sad. From my position on the sofa I've got a good view of the living area of my flat, the sofas back is along the length of the window, perfect for viewing the telly, but from my position at the end by the kitchen, Hathaway is now out of sight and I've no idea what he's doing.

"You do know the Met will probably check your results? Even if they let you do the autopsy in the first place."

Autopsy? No, no, no, they're just winding me up. Laura couldn't possibly murder anyone, and as for Lewis and Hathaway, they're good cops, dedicated to the job. I've witnessed it first-hand.

"Robbie," Laura says as she moves to stand beside him, handbag dangling in her left hand, giving Lewis an exasperated look. "I do know what I'm doing you know. What I cooked up in the lab won't leave a trace, his blood work will be clear. The cause of death will be an acute myocardial infarction, that's a heart attack to you," she smiles, she bloody smiles. This is so not funny anymore, not that it was to start with.

Laura suddenly crouches down in front of me and touches my knee, whatever she's "cooked up in the lab" has left me unable to move a muscle, all I could do is blink. "But it won't hurt," she assures me solemnly. "Everything will just, fade away." Well, that was a relief, I think to myself sarcastically. I would sneer at her, but I all I can manage is an angry blink. She's murdered me and she's standing there smiling at Lewis, who doesn't look so sad anymore. How the hell have I read them so wrong, how have they kept their true intentions hidden? How did I miss it?

She kisses Lewis on the cheek. "I'll see you at home." Hathaway has come back into the living room and as Laura makes her way to the door, she places a hand on his shoulder and Hathaway bends forward so she can kiss his cheek as well. What the hell?

Is this a cruel joke of theirs, because I've been putting the moves on Laura? It's their way of showing I've encroached too far? For fuck sake, all Laura had to do was say she was involved. Part of me really hopes this is some sort of vindictive prank, it's helping me keep the growing horror of what I know is really going on at a level that's not completely overwhelming me. I don't want to admit that I'll be dead within minutes, bested by rural city coppers.

"What did you touch?" Hathaway asks Laura as he returns to his full height.

"Just the wine bottle and the glass," she nods to the wine glasses sitting in front of me on the coffee table. One empty, one still full, she'd poisoned the whole bloody bottle. She'd sat beside me, making me laugh at all her stories of crime scenes and the antics of my fellow police officers, and I hadn't noticed that she'd not taken a single sip from her glass, as I drank mine down between chuckles.

Laura heads out the door without a second glance at me. I'd like to think it's because she's feeling guilty about what she's done to me, but somehow I doubt it.

"I'll sort this lot out," Lewis says to Hathaway picking up the wine glasses, "you check out the laptop."

Hathaway folds his lanky frame into the armchair placed by the end of the sofa, its back is against the breakfast bar, not the best position for it perhaps, but you can see out of the window and get a good view of the telly, perfect when you're procrastination over writing reports, which was what I was doing before Laura knocked on my door a little over an hour ago.

As Hathaway examines my laptop, Lewis has moved into the kitchen. Laura's full glass of wine is chucked down the sink and the glasses rinsed and then to my surprise Lewis puts them in the dishwasher, I'd smirk if I could, such an amateur mistake. One person, living alone, and two glasses in an otherwise empty dishwasher, that will ring some alarm bells, especially if it's my team that investigate. My moment of smugness is short-lived as Lewis starts opening cupboards and adds more glasses, plates, mugs, bowls, cutlery, a saucepan and a frying pan. Now my dishwasher looks like a single man who only puts the machine on when it's full or they're running out of crockery. Wily old bastard! Lewis finds a detergent tablet and sticks the dishwasher on for a full cycle.

"Gurdip?"

Hathaway's voice makes me turn my gaze to him. I can't see what he's been looking at on my laptop, the smug part of me that Lewis has just killed had assumed they wouldn't get past my password; it had the lot, capital letters, numbers, an exclamation mark and a dollar sign. Except for the fact that Gurdip Sohal, Oxfordshire's police resident computer genius, was stood right beside me when I set it up. I had trusted him, trusted them all, trusted my own intuition, so sure of my damn self.

"Yeah, I'm in, thanks. How are you and Julie doing?" Julie Lockhart? No, not her too! "Nothing in the encrypted files? Hooper! Oh, that's excellent. Yeah, it's all done, you two get off home." Lewis has finished in the kitchen and wanders back into the living room as Hathaway terminates the call.

"Nothing in the encrypted files on Peterson's office computer, sir and there's nothing on his laptop." Hathaway stands up, picking up the laptop and puts it on the coffee table in front of me, as if I've been using it before…before I died. "Hooper's on the top of his shit list," Hathaway nods towards me. "He thinks we're good, decent coppers."

"That's because we are. Reducing the fear of crime, that's our motto, isn't it?" Lewis replies.

"I think they prefer it if we do it within the letter of the law, sir," Hathaway smiles.

"What's that saying, 'Laws are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men'?"

"Close enough. Should I let Innocent know we're done here?"

Innocent? Chief Superintendent Innocent was in on it as well. God, was there anyone not involved? Everyone had smiled at me as I left work, wished me a good night, had they known what lay in store for me? That they would never see me again?

"Aye let her know. I'll meet you at the car; I want a minute or two with Peterson."

With a nod Hathaway leaves my flat. Lewis stares down at me, there's compassion in his eyes but nothing else. My heart is starting to beat so fast I fear I won't be able to hear over the sound of it.

"It's a complex situation, here in Oxfordshire, but it works," he says. "We can't have the likes of you anti-corruption boys coming up from London and messing things up. Sorry it had to be this way, but …" he shrugs and turns away. He moves across to the TV and switches it on, the BBC 24 news channel comes to life, and then without a backward glance he leaves.

He leaves me alone with my heart pounding harder and harder in my chest and I know my time is running out.

I'll be found tomorrow, when I don't turn up for my shift. Telly on, laptop open, and me stone cold, slumped on the sofa, just one of those unfortunate fit blokes who inexplicitly die from a heart attack.

It's eerie in the flat, even with the TV and dishwasher on; it feels silent, with the human voices gone. The last people I got to see on this earth are the very ones who ended my time here, the very ones I would have picked to watch my back.

I'll never know the answers to all the questions running through my mind almost as fast as my beating heart.

I've been murdered.

And no one will ever know.


End file.
